Mobile Phones Guide

NVIDIA Showcases New Games for Tegra Zone

Devices powered by quad-core processors are the flavor of the year. With consumers waiting eagerly for quad-core devices such as the HTC One X and the Huawei Ascend D Quad, how will these processors change the way you view your mobile devices?

NVIDIA answers that question with five new games announced at Mobile World Congress 2012. Featured under Tegra Zone, an app depository that houses games optimized for NVIDIA's multi-core processors, these games will be taking advantage of NVIDIA's four-plus-one architecture and its 12-core GeForce GPU.

One of the most recognizable games would be Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II. The continuing series will feature new graphical improvements such as real-time water effects and dynamic backgrounds across 17 new levels in 720p resolution.

Other buzzwords that have appeared in NVIDIA's announcement include high-resolution textures, high dynamic range lighting, soft shadows, lens flares and explosions. That particular description was found for Golden Arrow, a hack-and-slash game. Another similar game, Dark Kingdom, will also feature resource-intensive graphics such as higher-polygon models, dynamic shadows and lighting that's usually on found on dedicated console systems.

Quad-core scaling is also another feature that's often mentioned for these games, two of which includes Eden to Greeeen and Hamilton's Great Adventure. The former is built on the Unreal Engine, which should sound familiar to those who've seen how Unreal Engine games such as Infinity Blade 1 and 2 perform on the iPad and iPhone.

NVIDIA also mentioned that Hamilton's Great Adventure, which is built on BitSquid's DirectX 11 engine, gets the same Tegra 3 optimization and quad-scaling to provide a gaming experience that rivals even the PC version of the game.

From all perspectives, it's going to be a busy year for NVIDIA when the first Tegra 3 powered smartphones come to town, along with these five Tegra 3 optimized games accompanying these devices within Tegra Zone.